Reality

Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes

 

“The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”” 1 Samuel 3:10

It has been a long journey, some 13 years, since I started on the journey that I thought God was calling me to, that was affirmed by others and that has finally, unmercifully, come to an end.  Maybe a better verse to use for this post would be “I once thought as a child…..” because the naivety that once drove my faith has been worn away and finally, I have achieved adulthood.

I look back over previous posts, Facebook, and other media that I have used in the thirteen years that I have actively and intentionally walked a life as sinner/saint, broken and redeemed; so much foolishness, naïve beliefs and impossible thoughts.  Much like Heston dramatically shows in the original Planet of the Apes, astronaut George Taylor comes to realize that he has not slipped through an alternate universe or landed on a different planet, but that the human race has managed to destroy itself and the ‘evolutionary’ cousins, the Hominoidea, have evolved to take our place.  Having made his daring and bold escape, Taylor comes to the shore…..and finds Lady Liberty half buried in the sand…..he had no place to escape to.  He was home all the time.

Having the calling to the church in 2004 must’ve been foolish thinking; I am not polished, flexible or intentional enough to break the barriers that I did not even know were there and God has not seen fit to move the mountains.  The wounds of the last thirteen years have caused damage I was not aware of to the point where even I question my functionality should I have ever broken the barrier of man in my vocation.

The journey of the last two years in the Church has ended and much like Taylor, I have raced along the shoreline of the world before me confident in my ability to escape my foes and return to the process of fulfilling my calling….only to find I’ve escaped nothing, for the reality is the world has moved on without me.

God is still God and I am not.

But where once I thought as a child, I no longer can with reality starting me in the face.  It is time to grow up and move on to other things.

 

 

Broken Arrow…..I say again, Broken Arrow……

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“Pursue love and strive for the spiritual gifts…”

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (1 Co 14:1). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

Today, we celebrate Valentine’s Day……a contrived and commericalizedly sad comedy of the greatest of gifts we have been given that separate us from the rest of God’s creation…..the ability to love someone above and beyond ourselves.  But, we candize and flowerize and merchandize the heck out of our outward promotion of it, as if to say…”See, I’m not alone.  I can love.”  And, for the other 364 days of the year, we forget the promises we make this day.

Some of us, that is.  Some express this love so often and so much that those who don’t want to trivalize it….while seething with jealousy (or is it sadness?).  Some view Valentine’s day as just another opportunity among 364 others to show their love…..and some think that love is merely a biological function and today….well, today they’ll get “lucky.”

Some pray to the little ceribum to shoot them with love’s arrow, some target the little beast with an arsenal rivaling the U.S. Army.  Some swat at him as they would a fly, bothered by the pesky emotions that he invokes.

We know the name, it’s Cupid.

“The mention of Cupid typically conjures up images of a cherubic winged infant wielding a bow and arrow, but this wasn’t always the case.” according to the History.com website.  “Long before the Romans adopted and renamed him, Cupid was known to the Greeks as Eros, the god of love…..the son of Nyx and Erebus; or Aphrodite and Ares; or Iris and Zephyrus; or even Aphrodite and Zeus.”  Eros, with a quiver of special arrows said to arouse desire or ignite aversion, played with the emotions of gods and mortals.

And many would agree…..that’s exactly what Eros does, playing with the fragile psyche of the human experience.  Eros…..”the group of instincts, especially sexual, that govern acts of self-preservation and that tend towards uninhibited enjoyment of life,”  according to Merrimam-Webster’s dictionary.  Physical love or sexual desire…..Eros, the basis for the modern poster-child of Valentine’s Day.

But then, who is St. Valentine? Obviously there is a “Christian” response to this Romanized holiday that the foolish mortals of this world celebrate, right? Well, Saint Valentine, according to the Online Free Dictionary, is a third-century Roman saint associated with the tradition of courtly love…….and not much else.  He died on February 14th on Via Flaminia.   Courtly love…..ah, there’s something to celebrate, right?

Amour courtois, (“courtly love”) is an idolization of a mistress by a lover who then tries to become worthy of her by being brave and honorable….doing whatever she desires simply to prove his love and commitment.  This was based on sexual attraction, though it was not always for sexual satisfaction that courtly love was persued.

So, eros or amour courtois……love given to sexual desire, expressions of physical angst among the humans…..this is what we give chocolate, flowers, spend outrageous amounts of money pursuing another?

It is interesting, in the biblical text, that 1 Corinthians 13 is one of the most quoted parts of text in the world when it comes to love…..Love is…..Love is not……  Everyone, even those who do not know Christ, or profess His words know these verses…and often use them to push Christians to be purists, while they themselves fail to achieve such lofty goals.

But the very next verse is oft ignored……”Pursue Love…..” chapter 14 declares.  Pursue love and the spiritual gifts….”especially that you may prophesy.”  Those who prophesy speak to others for upbuilding, encouragement and consolation.    At least, that’s what follows in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.  Pursue love….for the sake of upbuilding, encouraging and consoling others.  Now that’s a noble and honorable task.

And it is embodied in yet another ‘famous’ verse, often seen at football games…..John 3:16; “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son…….”

Now that’s something to celebrate…..but not only one single day a year.

 

 

 

Square peg, round hole….

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.  But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!  As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!

 Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Galatians 1:6-10 NIV

It seems like yesterday that I packed up my office “swag” and quietly exited the door that has served as my entrance and exit for the past year.  I had done this less that two years ago at my internship church. 

There was no fanfare, no lined hallways with well-wishers adorning the walls with fond farewells and heartfelt ado.

As it began, so it ended….silently.

The gatherings, the fellowships, took place earlier in those times….before the reality of the moment set in.

I let the door shut behind me….and it clicked, the lock engaged.  Point of no return.

A square peg……

Great people in the body of Christ…..welcoming souls and tender hearts in both of my ‘church’ communities I have served in the brief time I have been a “roistered” commissioned minister in the LC-MS.  One was just an “internship” under a understanding and thoughtful pastoral leadership for a brief six months, the other under a equally thoughtful leadership that came to the realization in a year that we were on separate paths….and let me go to seek that path.

A round hole…….

Someone once told me that I serve the denomination I am a “commissioned minister” in by my choice, that if I don’t like the limitations or the culture of this denomination I can simply find another in which to serve….another more “amenable” place that doesn’t push me in one direction or the other.

But then, whom am I truly serving?

Luther did not ask to be excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.  He merely wanted it to conform to the Gospel of Christ rather than the doxology of men who ran it….or thought they did.  He didn’t seek a denomination of Protestants who took on his name as part of their label….the hyphenation before Christian.  But he spoke out, he nailed his thesis and he died in poor health and embattled to the end of his days.

A square peg………

I have been told that I have something that needs to be heard, yet the audiences do not want to hear it.  I have been assured that my place within this complex and diverse community of faith is clear….yet needs to be identified.  In the end of it all, I come back to the calling again and again, but it only seems to echo in my ear and none other.

In the end, I have no choice but to serve the God I know, to live the life I am compelled to live and to allow the bumps and bruises of a journey through the culture of our Church….no matter the denominational titling on the sign…..compelled, because as much as I would rather a simple man’s life with simple needs and simpler wants, I have not found the reasoning to turn away from this God I know.

So, now I serve as a teacher.  A third ministry in two years of service.  Not something on my bucket list, not something that I would volunteer for or something that I feel overly qualified for.  But, this is the place where He has put me to serve….so daily I pray for assured and faithful service to those I teach, those I serve with and those yet to be……..

to the best of my ability….to bring glory to God.

A round hole……….

I have learned in my journey to the eternal that a square peg can surely fit into a round hole.  But, neither will remain the same after the fit is complete.  Either the square peg loses some of its squareness….or the round hole loses some of its roundness.  It is a painful process and a difficult one, but it can be done.

The trick, of course, is not to lose the important parts of either.  So long as the Gospel is proclaimed, as my faith compels me to serve….I will allow myself to be pounded into a round hole…..seeking the best fit for us  both.

My churches I have served have taught me that; imprinting on me good things and good experiences that I will continue to be shaped by in the years of ministry to come.  I treasure the time spent with both congregations, though not the transitions in-between either and the associated difficulties that come with such movement.

But God is the same, in both the stable and the transitory….and He is in control.  And it is He whom I ultimately serve, in the place of His choosing and timing.

David Crowder says it best….in his song, “This I know”;

Up on the mountain
Where Your love captured me
Where finally I am free
This I know
Up on the mountain
Where You Taught my soul to sing
Amazing grace the sweetest thing
This I know

And then the storm rushing in
And here I am again
This I know

Take me up to where I was
When I never wanted more than You
Lift me up to feel your touch
It wouldn’t be that much for You
This I know
This I know
This I know
This I know

In the end, what I do and where I do it….a square peg in the round hole of God’s Ohana…..I will serve because of one thing….He is in charge.

This I know………..

I’ll NEVER go to the Gathering again…..

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Isaiah 55:8–9 (NRSV)

“Held every 3 years since 1980, the LCMS Youth Gathering provides thousands of youth and adults the opportunity to come together as a community of God’€™s people to learn more about Jesus Christ, the Christian faith and their Lutheran identity.   During the five days of the Gathering, youth spend time together in God’s word, worship, service, and fellowship with others from across the synod. This event is organized by LCMS Youth Ministry in Saint Louis, MO.”*

In 1980, in Fort Collins, Colorado, the Gathering theme was “Rejoice in His Presence” and focused on the Three Articles of the Apostles’ Creed; Creation, Redemption, and Sanctification.  According to the historical records, about 25,000 have consistently attended these events every three years; and many return as Young Adult Volunteers (YAVs or the Orange Nation).  This year, the theme was “In Christ Alone,” focusing on identity, humility and community.  It is meant to support the 500 year celebration of the Reformation in 2017 with the theme STAND.

Most churches are already beginning to plan for the fundraising, development and registration of their youth to attend the next Gathering in St. Paul, Minnesota in 2019.

This was the first year that my congregation has sent youth to the National Youth Gathering (NYG) and it was already underway when I assumed my tenured call position as Director of Family and Community.  The youth leader informed me about the existence of this event within a month and we started to strategizing.  I was going to be the ‘second-string’ quarterback…..a fill in if the main QB, the youth leader, was unable to attend.  I’d learn all the stuff, alongside him, so I could step in if needed.  I was confident that such an event wouldn’t happen.  (Yeah, I’ve made that mistake many times; you’d think I’d learn).

The youth leader was blessed by the birth of a baby boy to his family of two and I assumed the duties of first-string a few months before the Gathering.  There went the stay-cation I was going to have when my two went to the Gathering.

I had lived in Baton Rouge and a little blimp on the highway to Alexandria called Marksville in my younger days.  I traveled as part of the Church bringing aid and hope to Katrina’s devastation.  The reason why I purchased a water-cover that sits under the coffee mug is in remembrance of seeing one imbedded in a tree that first post-Katrina trip.  I knew New Orleans culture and community.  As I was to re-learn about N’awlins rain (and a lot that I had forgotten), preparing for the Gathering started with a light misting that developed into a driving vertical rainstorm.

Through planning the trip, organizing the “interest centers” and planning for a little sight seeing; hours and hours went blindly into the preparation of the Gathering group.  There were thematic pre-Gathering bible studies (Identity, Humility and Community) and financial considerations and planning.  Fundraising events, praying about the event, seeking advice from other local leaders who have gone before and strategizing about how to maximize the impact such events have on the youth….at least, according to the media prep I read.

The day arrived, and we departed from St. Paul Lutheran with their youth and youth from St. Michael’s for the twenty hour (20) trip to New Orleans Louisiana.  And sanity went out the window without me noticing……..

We arrived on Saturday and began the adventure that N’awlins would be.  A different kind of heat, walking everywhere (up to 10 miles a day within a 2.5 mile radius) and being in the uncomfortable position of leading youth that I really didn’t know….beyond my two and even that was a toss-up in this environment.  Day one went without a hitch and we wearily sank into our hotel beds that night.

Day two, during the first adult session which I was late getting to, I learned that all the advice, preparation and planning was going to push my youth too hard and I threw out the hard work, the Excel spreadsheet and comfort of the plan.  Day three, disaster as I gave the kids too much responsibility and trust.  Day four, recovering from Day three and Day Five, eyes turning to the return to familiar sights and sounds as the time drew to a close.

Not a successful trip, if you were to ask me.  I failed the group, my co-leader and my congregation.  As I sank into the uncomfortable seats of the charter bus and nodded gratefully to the familiar face of the bus driver who had dropped us off four days ago, my mind said, as I looked at the swollen right foot underneath me, “I’ll never go to another Gathering again!”

And as I managed to drift off in the uncomfortable position later into a semi-sleep, I reviewed the Gathering events, the youth I had led and the troubles that have me convinced that I am not made for youth ministry……..

The young man who wants to be mentored to lead so that he can come back as a YAV and serve; the other who wants to take his faith deeper so that he can be what God has called him to be; a servant to others.  The young man, challenged by others reaction to him and his special needs, who walked with confidence around the conference center, greeting friends from other places and times in his life, and the young women who meshed together.  The bible study notes taken in bibles freshly made….by those who never did before.  Sitting next to some of the youth, enjoying David Crowder and the music that has made my heart soar and my burdens ease.  The helpful CRBs and YAVs, the leaders and volunteers.  The New Orleans Police Department who always seemed surprised when I shook their hands and said, “Thank you for your service to us.”  And, seeing the filming of NCIS: New Orleans with a favorite actor, Scott Bakula, as we were walking back to the hotel.  The heat.  The sudden rainstorm that soaked me and the two youth who went on a ‘mercy’ mission for one of the group…..the failures of my leadership, the pain in my bones.

I’m NEVER going on a National Youth Gathering trip again……..with the carefully crafted charts and graphs and expectations that I did with this one.  I’m never going to go again with the expectation of pomp and circumstance that will briefly light up the passions of the youth in attendance but die in the light of the new day.  I’m never going again with the unkind thought that there is no real power in spending so short a time with so many others.  I’m never going to go again with the sinful thought that God doesn’t know what He is doing placing the burden of leadership and care and direction upon my shoulders.

I’ve learned something; God knows better than I.  He thinks deeper than I can, knows more than I’ll ever know and cares deeper than my fragile humanity can attain.

But, In Christ Alone, I am made new.  In Christ Alone, I find the ability to think of others more powerfully than myself far beyond my own capability.  In Christ Alone, I belong to the greatest, craziest and blessed community of His Ohana; the Church.

In Christ Alone, I find joy…love…and identity in the humility, connection and community of His people.

You see……………………………….

The National Youth Gatherings aren’t just for the 14-19 year olds…….

The Processional Cross at the 2016 NYG (courtesy of Diana Moore Ringers, Elberta Alabama) 

 

• taken from the 2016 National Youth Gathering website.

Knowing me, Knowing you……

“And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that He had done for Israel.”  Judges 2:10b

During my devotional time today, I was struck by this sentence in the tenth verse of the reading for the Old Testament.  Not because it was a surprise, after all…..another generation…..was very much Israel’s cyclic relationship with God.  They would do well, bringing glory and honor to God, something would distract them, and then they “did evil in the eyes of the Lord.”

We are alive in the greatest time of all of human history.  Today, five generations of people are alive; the builders, boomers, gen-x’ers, millennials and a generation who has yet to pick up a moniker. A generation who knew what connection to family meant to a generation who is constantly influxed with a new definition of family.  And, I believe, all five generations have heard the Gospel, throughout the earth.

And yet………

Do we really KNOW the Lord?  What Gospel is being preached and lived and understood in this ‘greatest time of all of human history‘?  We argue about the characteristics of this God and how He reacts to humanity.  We disagree with His intentional designs and expectations of gender, marriage, and other human institutions built on Christian morals and values.  We celebrate an alphabet-group, applaud racial harmony and cry out for individualism in the public square.  We silence one group of spirituality while promoting others, some more violent than most and some simply a thought in the passing rumble of a bumble bee.  We expect entitlements and demand a god that is a vending machine….if I tithe, you bless.  If you don’t bless well enough, I’ll expect my tithe back.

Speak of being obedient to the point of uncomfortableness in the Church today and you’ll soon be finding another job.  Demand preeminence of Christ in the schedule of a family with sports, academic and leisure activities crowding their hours and you’ll hear nothing but the crickets at your outdoor event.  Ask a person in the pews or comfortable chairs in the sanctuary today what good reading they’ve done today; you’ll get references to the latest Harry Potter or Captain America or self-help book.  Say that you agree with the biblical text that say homosexuality is a sin…no more of a sin than anger towards another…and you’ll be labelled a ‘homophobe,’ possibly thrown in jail for ‘hate speech.’

We know OF the Lord……….

“Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them.  Yet they did not listen to their judges, for they whored after other gods and bowed down to them.” v16, 17

This is the greatest time in all of human history…..and the worst of times in all of that history.  Once it was a whole nation, a chosen people, who cycled between love and hate, obedience and rebellion against the Creator God who created a covenantal promise with them.  Who loved and protected, guided and fed……

Now its a whole planet of the human race………Jews and Gentiles.

We perform rituals that have no meaning to us, because they were always done.  We find fault with things that are different, but convey the same message because that isn’t the way it was successfully done in the past.  We ridicule, despise and reject ‘outside the box’ as a way of doing the Lord’s work.  And yet, we are sinners….and saints.  Our way is best.  Our way represents what we know of the Lord God, the great I AM, better than anyone else’s.

Now more than ever before, Christians stand out from the rest of the human race.  In the chaos of ‘racial’ tension (really ethnic tension, there is only one race), gender confusion, medical universalism, profit, individualism, wealth activism, and whatever else you want to point to in the social culture that is slowly devolving into the primordial ooze most believe we came from now; a people who truly know God, NOT OF God, walk in a confidence and assurance through denominational lines, cultural chaos and secular decay.  They serve without boundaries, love without sin, and live a life dependent on the joy of the Lord Jesus despite the sorrow of a world in destruction mode.

Oh, the struggle is there…the war between sinner and saint but the sinner wins less and less each day.  Oh, they aren’t perfect…they don’t walk a straight line; no one can but they are known by their defiant love and consistent service.

“Knowing me, knowing you….There is nothing we can do”  Abba

We can do nothing to save ourselves, yet we give into a doctrine that says we can or we sit on our backsides believing a doctrine that says we can’t and hope.  We demand our entitlement of salvation or moan our misfortune of not deserving it to begin with.  We expect support for godly work but none for working for God.

 

You see, Abba has it wrong…….WE have it wrong……there is something we can do; we can know our Lord…..we can challenge our assumptions and we can dig into the search for Him…..He has promised to allow us to find Him.

When you say the Apostle’s creed, when you pray the Lord’s Prayer, or when you listen to a preacher who speaks the Word of God (whether or not they are entertaining or not, whether they doctrinally are alien to the very book they are reading or not)….do you hear it?

God speaking to you…..informing you, making you aware of who He is, what He is and how He is.  He cries out with a Father’s joy when we raise our heads from the long dusty journey home from atop the hill.  He knows us well, having sent His only begotten Son to die upon a cross of our making.

“This is He whom seers in old time Chanted of with one accord, Whom the voices of the prophets Promised in their faithful word.  Now He shines, the long-expected; Let creation praise its Lord Evermore and evermore.”  Of the Father’s Love Begotten.  LSB 384:3

Do you know Him?

 

Craziness…..sheer folly

“pluribus intentus minor est ad singula sensus”

 –The Routledge Dictionary of Latin Quotations (The Illiterati’s Guide to Latin Maxims, Mottoes, Proverbs and Sayings)

There comes a time in every scrapper’s life that they must realistically look at the bloodied and bruised landscape of their face, the aches and scars of their torso and the weariness of their soul; and admit that the continued punishment that they beset upon their own personage by entering the ring is at best craziness….at worst, sheer folly.

Merriam-Webster defines it as “a person who fights or struggles against something or to do something.”  In a way, we are all scrappers….those of us who call Christ Lord and Savior.  We struggle against sinfulness, against ungodly behavior, against the false doctrines of “I” and “Me” that predominate the narrative of the world today.  The world tells us that we can do whatever we want, be whomever we want, and love whomever or whatever we want.  There is no scrapping going on in the worldliness today.  We’ve worked hard, in our professions and our religions, to remove the necessity to ‘scrap’ for what we perceive is our identity.

A scrapper will continue to batter themselves against the walls of rejection, refusal and exclusion for the right ‘to do something.‘ The seasoned scrapper will fight for what is worth achieving, to the point of exhaustion.

One of the members of my church is a horticulturist scientist.  He takes care of the plant systems around our church building and is always ready to help you understand his passion for these systems.   This is a tree he has recently pruned…….right in front of where I park each day.  I call it the scrapper tree.

 

This tree was considered dead at one time, it was gone…..a transplant gone bad. Nothing was left and the remains of this shady tree was cut down.  A few years later, a tiny shoot was found during cutting the grass and it was protected.  I wasn’t around when the tree was originally planted, but from what the horticulturist says, this tree usually has branches that spread out from the center base of the tree.

One of the branches, when they had put supports on the tree,  grew too big and the support was not removed.  The tree grew around it and the support is still visible buried in the tree’s limb.  Another limb twisted and grew around the other, suffocating the normal growth of that branch, the scars of which will remain for a time since it was pruned off, the master horticulturist deciding the best course of action for the health of the whole tree was to remove that particular growth……so the tree can grow healthy in its current state.

It’s not a particularly pretty tree…there’s a host of microorganisms and various fungus that are growing on it.  It has scars from the battles of living that it has experienced.  The shade isn’t as complete as one may want it to be.  It will never be the picture of a perfect tree of this particular type. But it contributes and continues to grow, regardless of those ancillary things.  The tree is persistent; regardless of what others might think.

There will come a day when the tree is tired of being persistent and will simply start to fade…..and it will be cut down and hauled away.  Unless the care of the horticulturist continues to augment the tree’s strength, it will reach its limits and decline.  The scrappiness that kept it going becomes the impus of its demise.

Or will it?

 

What do you believe in? Why?

The Hammer of God: A Novel about the Cure of Souls was written by Bo Giertz, a  Lutheran theologian, novelist and bishop of the Gothenburg Lutheran Diocese from 1949 to 1970. “In this bestselling novel, three pastors learn the necessity of relying on God’s grace. They fall short of their pastoral duties through public humiliation, self-doubt, inability to accept God’s promises in their own lives, and divisions and quarreling among their parishioners. Ultimately each man rejects temptations and permits the Holy Spirit to work through him.” (Amazon review)

There is a moment of a powerful conversation between Pastor Fridfeldt and his superior.

“I just want you to know from the beginning, sir, I am a believer,” [the young Pastor Fridfeldt] said [to the older pastor]……”So you are a believer, I’m glad to hear that. What do you believe in?” Fridfeldt stared dumbfounded at his superior……”But, sir, I am simply saying that I am a believer.” “Yes, I hear that, my boy. But what is it that you believe in?” Fridfeldt was almost speechless. “But don’t you know, sir, what it means to be a believer?” “That is a word which can stand for things that differ greatly, my boy. I ask only what it is that you believe in.” “In Jesus, of course, ” answered Fridfeldt, raising his voice. “I mean — I mean that I have given him my heart.”…….”Do you consider that something to give him?” By this time Fridfeldt was almost in tears. “But sir, if you do not give your heart to Jesus, you cannot be saved.” “You are right, my boy. And it is just as true that, if you think you are saved because you give Jesus your heart, you will not be saved. You see, my boy,” he continued to look at the young pastor’s face, in which uncertainty and resentment were shown in a struggle for the upper hand, “it is one thing to choose Jesus as one’s Lord and Savior, to give him one’s heart and commit oneself to him, and that he now accepts one into his little flock; it is a very DIFFERENT thing to believe on him as a Redeemer of sinners, of whom one is chief. One does not chose a Redeemer for oneself, you understand, nor give one’s heart to him. The heart is a rusty old can on a junk heap. A fine birthday gift, indeed! But a wonderful Lord passes by, and has mercy on the wretched tin can, sticks his walking cane through it, and rescues it from the junk pile and takes it home with him. That is how it is.”

One of the books that I have been given to read, to expand my academic and professional vocabulary and knowledge base, is an old Concordia Publishing House book, Building Faith One Child at a Time by Becky Schuricht Peters printed in 1997.  I know how long ago that seems, my second eldest son was born that year.  Nineteen years ago….and yet it still rings truth today.

As I’ve studied for my bachelor degree and now as I continue into the Master of Science studies, a lot of the understanding of the developmental stages of humans is given attention to; predictable, sequential stages of growth (and change) that can be used to help us understand where we or someone else is on the ‘map’ of their competency, understanding, wisdom, and ability to affect their environment and world with an increased reference of a world view.

What Peters does, in her chapter entitled “Faith Development Theories” is to give us a sense of how development phases of our spiritual life happen.  With researchers like James W. Fowler, John H. Westerhoff III, and V. Bailey Gillespie, we can understand the development of faith, the faith that was given and is grown by God through the work of the Holy Spirit.

The situation Pastor Fridfeldt is experiencing at this particular stage of development….what Fowler claims is the Synthetic-Conventional Faith stage,  where we as believers give emphasis on God’s love and forgiveness.  This stage, according to Fowler, is where most of us live for the rest of our lives in faith.  We do not question, nor do we encourage anyone else to question, the beliefs that we have.  This is the “We do this because this is what we have always done” mentality of the Church today.  So fearful of false and misleading doctrines, those who have protected the essence and depth of the Truth are afraid of letting it be challenged.  They have no question about whom they are…..at least on the surface.

They experience the qualms Fridfeldt does after a incident with some villagers who are less than stellar in their “christian” attitude and conduct, and the rector treats them like children of God ………

“Fridfeldt felt at once and the same time impressed and perplexed.  He could not quite approve treating everyone without distinction as a Christian.  But he was happy about the results.”

The problem is, there are a lot less of the shiny, properly labeled food sitting on the grocery store shelves of life anymore.  As the verse reminds us, “like a roaring lion, your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).  Many in the world today have been the feast of this adversary.  All that is left is the rusty tin can of what once was a child of God, discarded upon the rust heap of this world.

But, it is these rusty, empty and castoff tin cans that are usually at the next stage of spiritual development, if they are given a chance like the “wonderful Lord” gives to them.  But it is fearful to those who live in the “unexamined way of believing.”  This next development phase of faith is called the “searching faith” by Westerhoff, and is indicative of Gillespie’s “resolute faith” 

Rituals and symbols don’t have meaning to empty tin cans, nor does the ‘unquestioning’ method of understanding biblical narratives and the great I AM.  They are empty, waiting to be filled with the promise of the Holy Spirit, seeking to clean out the majority of the junk that has accumulated in the confines of their opened tops.

Some make it, while others fall into the trap of being recycled and put back on the shelf with a new food staple…..and are afraid to question why and who they are.  They want to be shiny and ‘new’.

It is well and good to stand on protecting the Truth from distortion and twisted logic that seems to find itself into our sermons, Sunday School classes, bible studies and community life.  But only in the kindness of speaking it loud and proud, on the behest of Christ and not our own.  Our stage of development is dependent on our understanding of who God is and who we are in Christ.  Not in understanding whom God is fully, something we will never be able to do.

The only way that will happen is if the faith community, the Ohana of God, understands the journey that a tin can brought in the home of the ‘wonderful Lord’ is on.  While they welcome the questioning, understand the motivation, and recognize the need for such searching; the Ohana stands upon what it knows and can confidently embrace because it has undergone the journey itself…..”what do I believe?”  Then the rituals and traditions find deeper meaning, greater spiritual instruction and more powerful impact in the lives of all.

Martin Luther experienced this kind of faith, questioning and seeking God on His terms — yet knowing he’d never fully understand it.  It is interesting how the founder of this denomination never intended being excommunicated.

Each of us have been a rusty tin can….sinners through and through regardless of whether we have been baptized as an infant or later adulthood.  We all continue to struggle, at least we should if we are honest, against the resurrection of the old man over the new.  As Luther reminds us to say, “We, poor and miserable sinners”

We are all tin cans, rusted upon the refuse heaps of a “lion” that has devoured our heart of identity, but some have donned a new skin.  Still empty on the inside as they sit in the pews and speak Christian-ez language among the freshly scrubby faces of other grocery store cans.

Luther never wanted us to be ashamed of asking for more from our Heavenly Father (just as we once did with our earthly ones).  He would rather have us challenge God to answer and be assured in the Word, Sacraments and understanding about who, what, why and how………

“we believe”

 

“Thus when we declare, ‘I believe in God,’ we are not saying only that we believe that God exists.  Certainly, believing in God requires believing also that there is a God.  But this is not the main thrust of our words.  Their main thrust is that we trust God for our lives, and also that it is in this God that we live and believe, that this God is both the foundation and the context of our belief.”  Justo L. Gonzalez writes in The Apostles’ Creed for Today.

What do you believe in and why?

Ohana….its not just a word, its an attitude

I am serving currently as the Director of Family and Community at Faith Lutheran Church in Avon, Ohio.  This is an article I wrote for the bulletin:

“A five-foot-four Polish Roman-Catholic woman who taught me a healthy respect for those who are “laterally challenged” told me once after a typical ‘dust up’ with my older brother, “You can pick your friends, even your nose (though I wouldn’t advise it), but you can’t pick your family.”    She was my mother-by-choice, socially known as my ‘step-mother.’  She raised me to be whom I am today……

What makes a family?  Families, according to most ‘generic’ definitions, is a group of primary connections – biological, emotional, social, economic, and legal – where individuals with personal needs and desires live in complex relationships with each other and from which society gets its well-being.  Today, less than 9 percent of society views family in a traditional sense that begins with a biblical union called marriage.

So what is the family?  Who is right and who is wrong?

The family is “Ohana” …. from the Hawaiian culture, “emphasizes that families are bound together and members must cooperate and remember one another.” (Wikipedia) The family is an attitude; an attitude we carry into every relationship we hold dear…. for the family is the dearest relationship we have.

Ohana is the bind that ties us in diverse and unimaginable ways yet triumphs our own personal desire to champion others to be empowered, equipped and enthused to do the same to others.  It becomes a movement, born of our attitude that “no one is left behind, no one is forgotten” even as we travel at different speeds, different seasons, and different stratospheres of economic, social and even spiritual understanding and maturity.

In our churches, we must be committed to doing church as a family….to help shape homes to be Christ-centered so that with the family we can share the process of making disciples to serve the communities we live, work, play and neighbor.  To do OHANA in such a way that we not only collaborate with our families of origin, families of responsibility and families of choice, but we do so with the larger Ohana of churches in our city, county, circuit, and state.

We seek God, worship God, and confess to Jesus Christ our needs, desires and failures TOGETHER.  We embrace everyone, for the sake of Christ and the work that He has yet to complete in each of us, and walk at the pace of the slowest member of our clan, our family …. Why?

Because “no one is left behind and no one is forgotten.”

A family-orientated church is not a pristine sanctuary for the perfect, but where everyone is being made perfect.  A family-orientated church is about strengthening the family so that faith is recited, not regurgitated; empowering, not enabling; life, not a zombie-like death.  The church is a place where the family gathers, fellowships, worships and does life together….

At Faith Lutheran Church, they are moving forward in developing that attitude; Family Intergenerational Sunday School, more engagement in events, community and other key places like marriage, parenting and teaching faith at home.  Catechism and Faith legacy.  Unique to its community, and not so unique.  Intentional.  Family doing family processes and events that promote, emulate and expand our Ohana.  Not for the pews, not for our edification, but for the glory of God.

Faith has designed their family orientation in a forward motion that is symbolized in our image, the three colored circles of Church: Home: Community.  They have the character, the passion and the ability to develop this attitude of Ohana.  It is evident in how they served their neighbors at the first community meal of the year in Lorain, how they have stepped into the lives of families through Love Inc., and the discussions Faith engage in about how we want to be known…. not as Faith, that church at the end of the street.  No, as Faith…God’s community in the city of Avon that lives, breathes and delivers Jesus’ gifts to us to the city, the county, and the state.  This is something that shouldn’t be just a “Faith Lutheran Church” attitude but an attitude for each and every church within the family of God.

Family Life is the “how” by which we do church, for we are family…..we are Ohana.  We have our crazy Uncle Sals, our doting Aunt Graces, our annoying brothers, and weird sisters, harried dads and harassed moms.  We struggle and succeed, tested and blessed, and we have our sorrows with our joys.  But in the end of it, we move forward together.  We lift each other up when we are down and we challenge each other to do the work that our Father above has empowered, equipped and called us to do.

As a church, a community and as OHANA………

because “no one is left behind, no one is forgotten.””

Expectations

A inspiring and challenging blog from a colleague and sister in Christ.

Source: Expectations

So this is Christmas….

 

“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”  

Zephaniah 3:17

Not your atypical Christmas verse, I know.  We think of Linus Van Pelt and his famous oration of the “real meaning of Christmas, Charlie Brown!”  About the shepherds, the Heavenly Host and the family in Bethlehem being serenaded by the heartfelt beat of a drummer boy’s drum.  As Faith Lutheran’s pastor pointed out at Advent services last night, Linus’ chronic security blanket problem that had unsuccessfully tried to be removed from his clutches by the Peanut gang countless times is deliberately and without provocation dropped as he begins with “Fear not…..”

Our visual signs of Christmas are in full bloom by now, less than ten days away from the celebrated day of Christ’s birth….a pagan holiday for a imaginary god that we wanted to offer an ‘alternative’ to.  The mistletoe that is alleged to be a druidic way of celebrating winter that have become a festive celebration of color, and a means to ‘steal’ a kiss from a loved one.  The poinsettias that grace our homes and sanctuaries, symbolic of the star of Bethlehem.

So is that Christmas?

The Christmas Tree, a symbol of life in the starkness of winter.  It is thought that Martin Luther was the first to light a Christmas tree with candles because of the beauty he saw as starlight shone through the branches of a fir outside his home.  The candy canes we use to decorate (and fill our sweet tooth) the tree with, symbolic of Jesus; the shepherd’s crook, white (Christ’s purity and sinlessness), three small stripes (Jesus’ pain/the Trinity), a bold stripe (Jesus’ blood shed for us) and the letter “j” that you see when you turn the candy cane upside down.

And who can forget that jolly old guy that is the “Man” of so many Christmas celebrations, St. Nicholas.  A very pious Christian, known for his generosity with those who were poor.  Imprisoned and tortured by the Romans, Constantine freed him and sent Nicholas as a delegate to the Nicaea council in 325 A.D.   A patron saint of sailors, a few countries, and children, he has become the behavioral specialist for countless homes….as we all know about a naughty and nice list.

So is that Christmas?

We stand in the cold darkness of the night, still hung over from our festive gluttony of turkey, ham, pumpkin pie and family/friends that were gathered together to celebrate the ‘thanks for all we have’ to get more stuff that the retail stores say we have to have to be thankful in the next year.  Credit cards in hand, “buy happiness” now mentality and cutthroat shopping fall the day after a thankful celebration, three days after online and the frantic shopping ‘season’ runs right up to the eve of Christmas, with the procrastinators and grateful Christmas bonus recipients rush to get that ‘requested gift.’

So, I ask again, is that Christmas?

Depending on whom you ask, you’ll get affirmatives (with less sarcasm) to each statement.  Atheists say its a co-opted pagan holiday, which is true.  Most of the symbology is repurposed.  And even the old fat guy with superhuman (or god-like powers) of sight and presence has been contorted over the years to be something he was originally not.  Linus, in his 50-year old proclamation, is the closest to our Christian worldview…..to us, a child is born.

But that child was first begotten, of the Father.  And the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the three-in-one…the Trinity, was there when the world was made.  That child was a King, God incarnate, and seated upon a throne in the realm of heaven; his birthright, privilege and rightful place.  That child, born as a baby, shaped the world He came to and altered its path forever.  That child came to a place where He was not loved by most, hated by many and ignored by a lot of the people who knew Him personally.

Not because it was a requirement, though the requirement for the sinfulness of humanity would be met.  Not just for love, for love can be tough some times and harsh….. Not just because it was something to do, a holiday to create and an excuse to get some ‘recognition.’

Look at the verse from Zephaniah again.  Think of that baby, lying in a manger in the town of Bethlehem that held the animals food just moments before.  Think of the life that would be led by this baby for 33 plus years….and where it ended on this earth.

Gather your family and friends, go to your congregation’s celebrations and worship and look around.  That is the reason…..

God so loved us….He desired nothing more than to stand in our midst, save us from our fate and rejoice over us….making us greater than our great accomplishment and purer than our greatest hope.

And He sent Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, to earth to be fully God and fully man, so that we may become children of God.

I think you’d drop your security blanket too.

“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this [shall be] a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

And that is the true meaning of Christmas, my friends.

 

 

 

 

 

http://wilstar.com/xmas/xmassymb.htm#sthash.z4jAmPoU.dpuf